It snowed!

[kandrathe]

However, ice is a different matter. It will give even a good winter driver a challenge, especially if it's close to the freezing point and the pressure of driving on it gives a thin layer of liquid between the tires and the ice.

That reminds me of a recent Christmas where I drove down south to my mom's place. She moved there from here. Going through the Ozarks we ran into an ice storm, and it left about 1/2 inch of ice on the roads covering about 100 miles of my trip. That 100 miles took about 4 hours, instead of 2, and I passed by hundreds of people whose lack of skill sent them flying off into the ditch left and right. It's not that driving through ice storms is unusual up north here, but people don't fly off the roads here as much. For one thing, they salt and sand the roads which helps immensely. I avoid rush hours during storms as a rule, as they become more akin to carnival bumper car rides. But it is an adrenaline kick when driving transforms itself into an exercise of exerting influence on momentum, and it's really only rapid changes in velocity and curves that present any challenging problems.

In fact, the only time I really lost it on the ice, was when I was 17. There was an brief ice storm over night, but come morning, the sun came out and dried up the roads. I left the house at about noon, and was zooming along on dry roads on a sunny winter day. I came up around a shaded curve and before I could blink, I had plowed a furrow through the snow bank landing near about a dozen other victims of this ice trap.